


Roman

by F00PY



Series: Analogical Hogwarts [9]
Category: Sanders Sides (Web Series)
Genre: Child Abuse, Gen, Gryffindor! Roman, Harry potter verse, He's 14, Heavy Angst, Hogwarts AU, Muggleborn! Roman, Muggleborn! Virgil, Ravenclaw! Virgil, Roman Angst, Roman Talks to his Step-Mother About Virgil, Roman Thinking About His Brother, Roman and Virgil are half-brothers, Roman in Denial, Roman is in fourth year, barely edited, racism mentioned
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-21
Updated: 2020-11-21
Packaged: 2021-03-10 04:22:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,526
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27657475
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/F00PY/pseuds/F00PY
Summary: That’s when the other woman had become Mom. And Roman loved her more than anything.So he hadn’t noticed.He hadn’t noticed when Virgil started leaving the house at 4:30 in the morning, returning by 7:30 just to grab his school bags.
Relationships: Anxiety | Virgil Sanders & Creativity | Roman "Princey" Sanders, Anxiety | Virgil Sanders & Logic | Logan Sanders, Anxiety | Virgil Sanders/Logic | Logan Sanders, Creativity | Roman "Princey" Sanders & His Step-mother, Mentioned Creativity | Roman "Princey" Sanders & A Couple of OCs
Series: Analogical Hogwarts [9]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1954183
Comments: 11
Kudos: 151





	Roman

Terry and Jack had stopped talking to him when Roman didn’t make the Quidditch team. Some 6th year had gotten it instead- something about it being his last years in school so they needed to make sure he was happy.

But that had been the final nail in a coffin Roman refused to admit he had dug himself. Somehow, he had gone from one of the most popular Gryffindors- hell, one of the most popular kids overall- to the one people whispered about. Side-eyed as they walked by. Avoided at all costs.

Each time somebody he had been friends with passed him by without a wave a hole in his chest grew. A hole that had started way back when, before he had stepped foot in Hogwarts, before he had even started living with Virgil and his step-mom.

It had started the day his mother died in a car accident when he was four. And it had grown when his dad quietly admitted to having another woman and let him meet her and her son, Virgil. But Roman had been four, and Roman hadn’t understood what that meant about his dad. All he knew is that he hurt and that this new woman was kind.

And then, when Roman was six, his dad passed away. He had been afraid, he had been terrified that the woman would turn him away. But she had only taken his trembling body into her arms and promised that he would always have a home with her.

She had understood that hole. Everything she had ever done worked to take all his shattered pieces and put them back together.

When Roman came home from a test, knowing he had failed it, she had seen the signs on him and talked him through it. A cup of hot chocolate or milkshake later (depending on the season) Roman would be laughing again.

When Roman was rejected by a friend group for being “too black” she had been there too. Despite being white, despite not understanding anything, she had worked to make sure he felt better. And then she had called the parents of every one of those kids and shouted at them for half an hour until her voice was hoarse and the phone bill was nearly unpayable.

Every anniversary of his father's death, of his mother’s death she would bring Roman to their graves. The two of them would have a picnic by it and she would bring up moments of his father’s life or tell Roman things his father had told her about his mother. 

The stories were often repeated. But Roman had never cared.

Slowly, she had taken the chasm inside his chest and healed it, helping to close it until it was barely noticeable, just the essence of grief from another time.

That’s when the other woman had become Mom. And Roman loved her more than anything.

So he hadn’t noticed.

He hadn’t noticed when Virgil started leaving the house at 4:30 in the morning, returning by 7:30 just to grab his school bags.

He hadn’t noticed his six-year-old brother getting home at 10:30 every night, sometimes with a paycheck that didn’t reflect the number of hours he had been gone.

He hadn’t noticed the clothes Virgil began to wear, clothes that covered up his arms and legs until the only bare skin you could see was his face.

He hadn’t noticed the way his brother would sometimes wince when Roman bumped his shoulder, or the fear in his brother’s eyes when his mother walked into the room.

He hadn’t noticed anything.

He hadn’t.

He couldn’t have.

_He couldn’t have._

Roman let out a quiet groan. He glanced over at the clock on the wall but the time did nothing for him. The appointment was at 3:00 pm- and it was only 2:41. He still had time.

Merlin, was he tired.

Roman couldn’t remember the last time he had slept the whole night. Every time he shut his eyes, he imagined his brother’s tired and tear-filled eyes, staring up at him as Roman told him that he was a liar.

That their mother wouldn’t hurt him.

That he _deserved it._

It was all Roman could so not to let another moan escape him. He leaned back against the metal chair, head falling against the white wall behind him.

Virgil _was_ a liar.

He _had_ to be.

There was no way the same woman who hugged Roman like the world would end if she dropped him, the same woman who slowly went through his homework with him, the same woman who listened to all of his dumb stories, would be capable of smacking another child. Of more than that, if Virgil was to be believed.

There was no way Roman would love somebody who was that _wrong._

Right?

_”I told her I would be late. I told her why. I told her when. But when I was late, she was furious. She beat me until I wasn’t able to stand and then she broke one of our clocks- took the hand of it, and stabbed it through my hand.”_

“Shut up!” 

A couple of people glanced over at him, and Roman curled tighter into himself. 

Virgil was lying.

Virgil was lying.

Virgil was lying.

Roman didn’t remember the broken clock.

Roman didn’t remember contemplating how strange it was that only the hand was missing.

Roman didn’t remember the tripped excuse or thinking about how that didn’t make any sense.

Because that would mean Virgil was telling the truth.

And that would mean his mother was bad.

And she couldn’t be.

She couldn’t.

Virgil’s face floated in front of his again. The tired, tired eyes, the shattered hope, the brimming tears. Roman tried to push the image away but it just came back, stronger and more gut-wrenching.

2:48.

The clock loomed out at him, like a long scar on somebody's left hand. Roman could feel his insides twisting and he got to his feet, just managed to make it into the bathroom before he dry-heaved onto the floor.

Nothing came up. Roman hadn’t expected it to- there had been hundreds of times he had nearly thrown up, but never once had he actually done it. 

Still, Roman stayed crouched over the toilet. There hadn’t been time to lock the bathroom door but Roman couldn’t find it in him to get up.

She was his mother.

She was his _mother._

She loved them.

She loved both of them.

She would never hurt any of them.

She would never… 

_”What’s wrong?”_

_Virgil, only eight at the time, had frozen from his spot in the kitchen. Bandages and medical tape lay on the table in front of him and he was wrapping his right arm in it. But by far the most troubling thing was the pile of bloody glass with a pair of tweezers next to it._

_“Hey Ro.”_

_“Virgil! That looks awful! We need to get you to the doctor! I can call-”_

_“No, no, no, no!” Virgil leaped up to his feet and used his right hand to grab Roman shoulder. “I’m fine! I got all the glass out! There’s no need to get them involved, they’ll ask all kinds of questions and…” Virgil looked at the floor. “I don’t want to talk to anyone, okay?”_

_“If you’re sure,” Roman looked at his arm and let out a hiss. “Let me help you bandage it then, okay? It looks like it really hurts.”_

_“It’s fine.”_

_“Come on, let me help.”_

_Virgil hesitated. “Alright, fine. Needy busybody.”_

_Roman had laughed. They sat at the table and gently, Roman wrapped his younger brother’s arm in the cloth, finishing it up with the medical tape and finally a random heart sticker he had in his pocket._

_“You’re so extra,” Virgil remarked. He was smiling though and Roman chest warmed at the sight of it._

_“Excuuuuuse you, I am not_ extra! _” Roman grinned. “I am Roman.”_

_“You just said the same thing.”_

_“Hey!” Roman glanced down at the glass on the table and his grin faded. “What happened?”_

_Virgil blinked. His body tightened slightly and Roman was about to tell him to forget it when a forced smile crossed Virgil’s face._

_“I was walking downstairs with a glass vase, dropped it, and then fell on it like an idiot,” Virgil told him._

The glass had been brown.

Not a pretty brown, brown like mud, like dead leaves and earthworms.

Brown like the beer bottles they never seemed to run out of.

Roman dry heaved again. This time, he got to his feet and flushed the crystal clear water down the drain. After washing his already clean hands, he made his way back out into the waiting room and sat in the same seat he had run out of.

The more he thought, the more he could spot more signs he had missed, more that pointed him towards the idea that maybe Virgil wasn’t lying and his mom really had-

_She hadn’t._

Because that would mean Roman was wrong. It would mean he loved a woman who hurt others, it would mean his last living parent was gone from this world and it would reopen the chasm in his chest that he had spent so long closing.

So she hadn't.

She hadn’t.

Virgil was lying.

It didn’t matter that the court had decided his mother was bad and sent her to prison.

It didn’t matter that everyone in the entire school believed Virgil.

It didn’t matter that Roman had never known Virgil to want to mislead anyone in a way that would hurt them.

It didn’t matter.

She was his _mother._

His step-mother.

He loved her.

He _loved her._

She couldn’t… 

She couldn’t… 

_“Will you face facts,” Virgil asked tiredly, “instead of acting like a giant baby all the time?”_

Will you face facts?

Will you face facts?

Will. You. Face. Facts.

2:58.

“Roman Prince!”

Roman looked up from his seat and at the prison guard. The prison guard waved at him and he slowly got up and followed them from the waiting room and into a second one.

The second one had a half wall separating two halves of a room. Every five feet, there was a large piece of plexiglass and an old fashioned phone on either side of the glass.

And there she was.

Mom.

Her entire face lit up when she saw him. Slowly, Roman made his way over and sat across from her. He picked up the phone and held it to his ear.

“Hey, honey!” His mother pressed her hand to the glass. On instinct, Roman did the same. He ignored the way it made his stomach clench.

His hand didn’t warm from the knowledge that hers was just an inch away. It stayed cold and lifeless.

“How’re you doing?”

“I’m good.” Roman smiled so he had more time to figure out something to say. “But I’ve got a Charms test coming up and that’s never fun.”

“Tests never are. But you’re my boy! You’ll get through it!”

_“Will you face facts?”_

“Virgil’s in the same Charms class as me,” Roman said suddenly. “He’s been nervous about the test also. I overheard him and Logan talking.”

“Oh.” His mother paused. “Let’s not talk about Virgil.”

“Why not?” 

His mother’s lips pursed. “Because he put me in here in some stupid attempt for attention. I don’t want to think about him.”

“Do you love him?”

“Of course I-”

“Were you nice to him?”

“Roman, I don’t understand-”

“Do you think he loves you?”

“Roman-”

“Because I think about it sometimes.” _All the time._ “I wonder why he would lie. I mean, he must love you, right? If you don’t hurt him?”

Roman’s step-mother didn’t respond.

“And he doesn’t like attention.” Tears pricked Roman’s eyes. “He hates it. He _hates_ attention.

“And he…” A sob built up in Roman’s throat forcing him to gasp for breath before he could keep going. “He never tried to hurt anyone before. Everything he ever does is to protect others. He’ll protect others at the cost of himself, did you know that ma?

“One time-” a sob tore from his throat- “one time, when I was little, a bunch of white kids were being pricks because I was black. They were hitting me. And Virgil-” another sob- “he just walked up and punched one in the face. He was so small. But at the moment, he didn’t care. And they went to hit him, and he just yelled at them to stop hurting his brother-”

Roman let out another sob.

“I can’t imagine that boy- my brother- I can’t imagine him hurting you for attention. Especially if he loved you. Did he love you, Mom? And if he did, did you deserve his love?”

Still, his mother said nothing.

Tears were flowing down Roman’s face like waterfalls now. Each breath he took hurt and forced a golf-ball in his throat to bob up and down, _up and down-_

_“Will you face facts?”_

“Mom,” Roman sobbed. “Mom, why did you hurt him? How could you hurt him?”

She still didn’t respond. Roman’s breathes picked up and he could feel his chest _burning._ Fire raged through him, burning everything in its path until all Roman felt was heat and pain.

“How could you hurt my brother like that?!” Roman screamed it, every other word demolished by gasps for air. “He was just a kid! He _is_ just a kid! How could you!? HOW?!”

“Roman,” his step-mother said tentatively, “you’re being very emotional right now-”

“DON’T TELL ME I'M BEING EMOTIONAL!” Roman yelled. “Don’t- you- He slammed his hands against the glass, making his mother jump. “Admit you hurt him.”

“Roman-”

“ADMIT IT!!”

She stiffened slightly. “Sometimes, as a parent, you have to make decisions-”

“So you did.”

“Roman-”

“You hurt him.”

“Roman-”

“Stop saying that.”

“Roman, please-”

“STOP SAYING MY NAME YOU BITCH!” Roman’s left hand closed in and out by his sides. His right gripped the phone so tightly he was surprised he hadn’t broken it yet. “I hate you!”

“Roman-”

“I FUCKING HATE YOU!!!”

Tears pricked at his mother’s eyes. “Roman, you have to listen to me.”

For a moment, Roman imagined jumping over the glass and slamming her against the wall. He pictured the look on her face as _she_ was the one hurt instead of his brother-

_“Even if she did that to you,” Roman snarled. “You probably deserved it.”_

Roman eyes shut. His mother may be bad, but it wasn’t his place to punish her for it. 

After all, he was just as wrong.

Ignoring his step-mother’s pleas, Roman placed the phone back on its little machine and began his walk away from her.

From the woman who had taken him in, despite him being another’s child.

The woman who had helped him through his grief over his father.

Who had listened to him and paid attention when no one else would.

And while his chasm tore itself open once more, it wasn’t her tear-stricken face Roman was thinking about when it grew.

It was Virgil’s.


End file.
